Regretting You - Colleen Hoover

Ruminations of an Insomniac.. 

First, I have to say, this one hit closer to home than I had anticipated. My husband and child's names are pretty much the same as Morgan's (my daughter's name is Clarabelle, not Clara. But seriously now..) It caught me off guard a bit. And I feel like her sentiments in the beginning of the story, are shared by so many mothers. As a stay at home mom, myself, I deeply sympathized with Morgan. Once your baby is grown, who are you then? No career to fall back into. Wanting more, but so unsure of your next steps.

I also have a soft spot in my heart for Clara. Smart, witty, driven, messy, hesitant, unsure Clara. She is every ounce of sixteen, stuck in the middle ground between childhood and adulthood. Wishing for simple but (probably subconsciously) craving complicated. Decisions that will impact her future, her whole life, resting on her shoulders. And her boy? Oh, her boy; sweet, pensive, sure, knowing. I don't want to give away the farm here, but a boy with a camera will always steal a piece of my heart.

“It means people who make mistakes usually learn from them. That doesn’t make them hypocrites. It makes them experienced.” - Jonah

Colleen Hoover managed to gracefully balance the internal struggle of each woman and the external conflict the majority of mother/daughter pairs face. Because of course she did. Let's be real. She's CoHo. I feel like she can write realistic human condition in her sleep. I've yet to read a character of hers that isn't an onion. Layers deep and rounded. (😉) And the lives within this story are no exception.

Fluidly mixing two vastly different "coming of age" scenarios and two dramatically juxtaposed love stories, Regretting You struck perfect harmony. The emotion running through the ink on these pages is palpable and the reality is aching. My heart straight-up Grinch'd, reading this story. But it just had to grow three sizes, in order to successfully wrap this story in the full body hug it deserved.

Rating:

Book Boyfriend: 8.5/10 (and 9/10, but I'm not going to tell you why) 

Flow: 10 /10

Plot: 10/10

Overall: 9/10

Currently available on Kindle (and Kindle Unlimited). 

Synopsis 

From #1 New York Times bestselling author of It Ends with Us comes a poignant novel about family, first love, grief, and betrayal that will touch the hearts of both mothers and daughters.

Morgan Grant and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Clara, would like nothing more than to be nothing alike.

Morgan is determined to prevent her daughter from making the same mistakes she did. By getting pregnant and married way too young, Morgan put her own dreams on hold. Clara doesn't want to follow in her mother's footsteps. Her predictable mother doesn't have a spontaneous bone in her body.

With warring personalities and conflicting goals, Morgan and Clara find it increasingly difficult to coexist. The only person who can bring peace to the household is Chris--Morgan's husband, Clara's father, and the family anchor. But that peace is shattered when Chris is involved in a tragic and questionable accident. The heartbreaking and long-lasting consequences will reach far beyond just Morgan and Clara.

While struggling to rebuild everything that crashed around them, Morgan finds comfort in the last person she expects to, and Clara turns to the one boy she's been forbidden to see. With each passing day, new secrets, resentment, and misunderstandings make mother and daughter fall further apart. So far apart, it might be impossible for them to ever fall back together.